Hi, I’m Bryce Dreifus and this is my blog for EL 12B. One of my main interests in terms of journalism is stories that can help educate the public on matters that affect them. I think journalism can really have an impact on peoples’ lives and seeing that utilized is really something amazing. As such I tend to like feature stories such as those on personal finance education, healthy eating, and community involvement matters. I also have an interest in stories that expose some of the positive things that people don’t always see. Many people have an impression of news and journalism as often focusing on the negative, but I think there’s a lot of positive news that occasionally gets passed over in peoples’ minds.

A recent on-campus news story which I find interesting is when Susan Polgar, the first female Chess Grandmaster, came to visit Brandeis. The article discusses how her main struggle wasn’t that many wished her to not succeed because she was a woman, but rather how the idea of a female advancing so far in Chess was unheard of and how that shaped how she was treated and what others expected from her. Her discussion of both the struggles she faced as a female in a male-dominated field as well as how her father instilled a love of the game in her manages to be both informative and inspiring. This is a perfect example of the type of newsworthy but positive stories that I love.

An off-campus recent story which is intriguing is an article outlining the effects Trump’s discussed tariff on Mexican-made vehicles has had on the Detroit automakers and how it may further affect them. Pickup trucks have high margins which have have been recent profit drivers for American automakers, but if a high tariff is implemented, those margins may be eliminated for GM and Chrysler. However, Ford may benefit as their pickup trucks are all made in the USA. It’s interesting to see how a decision that may have cost Ford more in labor in the past may actually turn out to be an advantage due to changing political circumstances. It just goes to highlight the often unpredictable nature of politics and how it can affect businesses in ways they hadn’t previously predicted.